GameMaker Studio 2 Launches, Letting Anyone Make Android TV Games

As a child, I like many others wanted to make games. One of the simplest ways to do so was GameMaker, a drag-and-drop tool that didn’t require you to code to make simple games. At the time, you could make simple things like Pong for the PC, but the software has continued to advance to become a pretty adept game development tool. It’s not as sophisticated as Unity’s 3D game engine, but it is much easier for beginning indie developers. GameMaker Studio 2 just launched with a number of new changes that allow you to build mobile and PC games with a single project.

The level editor has become more powerful, with greater capability over the visual experience and better tiling. The workflow manager has been enhanced to make project management more seamless. Their simple scripting GameMaker Language now supports native extensions and cross-platform development.

What’s most exciting is their work in cross-platform development. With this new program, you can build a game that can be downloaded and played on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, iOS, Android, and smart TVs. Yes, it will work on Android TV, Fire TV, Playstation 4, and XBox One.

These features aren’t free. You can get started for free with the tool, but it will work on Windows only. Mobile and Android TV support is $400, with a discount if you’re upgrading from GameMaker Studio 1.4.

If you want to get started with building games, but have felt intimidated by programming or complex tools like Unity, GameMaker may be a better program to get started with.

Nick Felker is a student Electrical & Computer Engineering student at Rowan University (C/O 2017) and the student IEEE webmaster. When he's not studying, he is a software developer for the web and Android (Felker Tech). He has several open source projects on GitHub (http://github.com/fleker)
Devices: Moto G-2013 Moto G-2015, Moto 360, Google ADT-1, Nexus 7-2013 (x2), Lenovo Laptop, Custom Desktop.
Although he was an intern at Google, the content of this blog is entirely independent and his own thoughts.